Magnitude 7.0 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
2003 May 26 09:24:32 UTC
Preliminary Earthquake Report
U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center
World Data Center for Seismology, Denver
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Magnitude | 7.0 | |
Date-Time |
Monday, May 26, 2003 at 09:24:32 (UTC) - Coordinated Universal Time Monday, May 26, 2003 at 06:24:32 PM local time at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones |
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Location | 38.90N 141.45E | ||
Depth | 68.2 kilometers | ||
Region | NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN | ||
Reference |
85 km (55 miles) NE of Sendai, Honshu, Japan 95 km (60 miles) SSE of Morioka, Honshu, Japan 150 km (95 miles) SE of Akita, Honshu, Japan 390 km (240 miles) NNE of TOKYO, Japan |
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Location Quality | Error estimate: horizontal +/- 6.5 km; depth fixed by location program | ||
Location Quality Parameters |
Nst=173, Nph=180, Dmin=386.7 km, Rmss=0.78 sec, Erho=6.5 km, Erzz=0 km, Gp=31.8 degrees | ||
Source | USGS NEIC (WDCS-D) | ||
Remarks | At least 104 people injured, some damage and landslides occurred in the Sendai area. Felt in much of northern Japan and as far south as Tokyo. Recorded (6L JMA) in Iwate and Miyagi; (5L JMA) in Aomori, Fukushima and Yamagata; (4 JMA) in Akita, Chiba, Ibaraki, Saitama and Tochigi; (3 JMA) in Gumma, Kanagawa, Nagano, Niigata, Shizuoka, Tokyo and Yamanashi Prefectures. Also recorded (4 JMA) in south- central Hokkaido and (3 JMA) throughout southern and central Hokkaido. |
This thrust earthquake occurred near the north-east shore of the island of Honshu, Japan. In this region, the convergence of the Pacific plate and the Eurasian plate generates numerous earthquakes. The Pacific plate is moving west at a rate of about 9 cm per year relative to the Eurasian plate. The surface expression of the boundary between these plates is the north-south trending Japan trench which is about 220 km east of the epicenter. Given the earthquake's fault mechanism and depth, it likely resulted from the release of compressional stresses within the Pacific plate that continuously develop as it descends into the mantle.
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NB:
The region name is an automatically generated name
from the Flinn-Engdahl (F-E) seismic and geographical regionalization scheme.
The boundaries of
these regions are defined at one-degree intervals and therefore differ from
irregular political boundaries.
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